Day 4 Roi- Namur

DAY 4 ROY-NAMUR

The airfield on Roi (the eastern half) was captured quickly, and Namur (the western half) fell the next day. The worst setback came when a Marine demolition team threw a satchel charge of high explosives into a Japanese bunker, which turned out to be a torpedo warhead magazine (It’s in today’s blog). Only 264 out of 10.000 Japanese soldiers surrendered during the US Invasion) at the end of this day in Kwaj and Rio, Downey, and I would have quit.

10 people were loading on the plane at Kwaj, and they are coming to see our show, Downey and I keep joking about how we are the Rock stars of the Marshal Islands, everyone knows who we are. The flight was amazing, seeing all the little Gilligan’s Island looking places. We land and get a fantastic tour of the island.

There were 3 medals of honor given away on Roi. 2 were guys who jumped on grenades. One on an enemy, one was a grenade that came back, and he jumped on his own. There is a prison that people think Amelia Earhart was captured and executed. These Photos are all below)

Above: The flight in was amazing. Right: we believe this is a bomb cart.

Below: on the beach, we saw a lot of artifacts.

Remember, click on any photo to see a large in HD photo... It is worth it sometimes.

Kwajalein Atoll was recognized as the pivotal point. It was also the distribution point on which reinforcements were gathered and sent out to other atolls. Altogether, the atoll consisted of 85 islands and extended 65 miles in, and it was 2,439 miles west of Pearl Harbor. I’m glad we flew here. It was still a long-ass flight, imagine boating it.


But it is pretty awesome now, Kevin and I saw these defense bunkers on the beach.
There where bullet holes all over the place in the cement.

 On nearby Namur, the going was not so easy. Here the Japs had set up a more vigorous defense in the form of fire trenches and pillboxes. Thick vegetation gave them excellent concealment and served as camouflage for many of their installations. And although the naval shelling had killed and wounded many hundreds of Japanese, there was still a sizable, although dazed and disorganized, force remaining to oppose the Marines. Good luck, ours are the best! Thanks, Grandpa and his generation!

The Battalion suffered more than half of its total battle casualties in this swift moment, and its advance was held up temporarily.

By this time, the Japanese were recovering somewhat and beginning to offer fiercer resistance. The battle for Namur was not going to be easy. The Third Battalion, with tanks in support (no one forgets to bring the tanks!), pushed ahead. A platoon of men under Lieutenant John V. Power soon encountered a pillbox that was spray-ing death all along the Marine lines. They rushed it, tried to lob grenades through the gunport, or to get a place-charge against it. But the fire was too hot. 

Above: Japanese generals house- looks like I got a good deal with Remax!
We see a bunch of Japanese buildings we bombed the hell out of.
One building had a prolonged firefight, and a marine had enough and snuck up to the building and threw a backpack bomb in the window. What that Marine didn’t know was it was the places where the Japanese were building torpedoes, and it blew about 8 torpedoes up killing a lot of people even our own

Do you see the little Japanese foot?

They decided to work around the pillbox and attack from the rear. Lieutenant Power led the way. As he approached the doorway, a bullet caught him in the stomach, but he didn’t stop. To the amazement of the Japanese, he charged forward, emptying his carbine into the narrow slot of a door. No one knows how many of the enemy he killed, but from that moment, the pillbox was doomed. Power fell, but one of his squads quickly finished off the last resistance. A Marine pulled the Lieutenant back into the safety of a bomb crater where he died a few minutes later. Lieutenant Power was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. What a guy, I love Stories Like this. It just shows you Americans are a wonderful breed.


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There were many other acts of heroism on Roi-Namur that day; not all of them were recorded, and even if they were, this blog would not be large enough to tell of them.

The enemy, thoroughly disorganized from our shelling, put up no single, well-planned defense. Instead, there were a hundred separate fights by individuals and small groups without unified command (very against the Japanese stereotype). 


Under such conditions, the Japanese soldier is a brave and stubborn fighter (sounds more like a group of Tauruses). On Roi, the enemy took to the partially covered drainage ditches which surrounded the airstrips, popping up to fire into the rear of our troops. This caused some confusion, and not a few casualties, but the position of the enemy was hopeless. We are coming to get you. 

These are taken where they think Amelia Earhart was captured and held prisoner

Demolitions and flame throwers routed them out, and riflemen picked off those who did not choose to blow themselves up with their own grenades. By 1800, six hours after the landing and with less than three hours of the actual offensive assault, Roi was declared secured.

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Right: I am a strong dude.. you’ve been warned I could have helped outlook at the building destruction I am capable of.

I warned you here is my first coconut opening: Pay close attention. I really enjoyed it after my hard work:

Tony told Downey where to find bullets. We found a handful of spent shells and cartridges, as we as an unspent bullet, a pick-as ahead, bomb carriages, pieces of vehicles, etc. Downey and I went inside a sizeable Japanese pillbox that housed 4 large guns.

Corona commercial with bullet casings!

SAND CRAB

Either a 100lb bomb missing a tail or some old gas tank- way too old and heavy to be a diver.

LEFT: Detonator
BELOW: 50 Cal Shell

This is the cops Popo station. It is amazing.

Kevin and I are walking on the beach, completely minding our own biz-nass looking for shell casings, bombs and bullets, and so on. We were digging in and really going at it, enjoying ourselves looking at stuff. When out of nowhere, a 6’9” dude (Stan- here is your shout out) came around a tree and asked, “what the hell were we doing?”.  I was scared and very nervous, I just wanted to be as honest as I could and not cause any problems, so I tried explaining to him we were just looking around.                                

This is the crew who found us on the beach. We ended up drinking at the Tiki bar until showtime. We all got together at the pear end to get a pic and broke the floor!

He just stared right at me and said, that was fine, but did we dig around and or mess with any wildlife? There is a lot of endangered species and people can’t disturb them. I showed him my backpack, and he said he had to pat us down to put out hands on a coconut tree. As I put my hands up he told Downey to turn around and me to drop my draws. My stomach dropped, I thought he may seriously need me to do a prison type search and my eyes must have been so big. I was sitting in an Irish diaper, and just then, I heard a bunch of people die laughing.                

LEFT: Old phone with a rusty lock

LEFT LOWER: Downey chumming for sharks (we sat a black tip eat some bluefish

BELOW: Bullet casings found on the beach

They were a bunch of people who saw us in Kwaj and came to Roi so a couple of their wives and other friends could see the show. They watched us work our way up the island looking and decided to mess with us but didn’t know we would fall for it. I was only thinking I don’t want to end up in a Marshaling prison.

Downey talking about Stan (back of Stan’s head)

We ended up drinking all afternoon at the Tiki bar with these guys. They really made it a fantastic trip. We were trying to get a hold of Tony because he would have loved it! Tony is one of the gang. Downey, Stephen and I made Stan the highlight of the show.

Left: Kruiser Downey and I decide to give the island a treat.

LEFT: RAINBOW
RIGHT: SUNRISE

The show went great, everyone killed.  Downey got drunk after the show and tried to sleep in the Japanese gun bunker but couldn’t find it in the dark. Someone offered to walk him there but told him he’d be inundated with rats. Downey drank more beer and slept in his rooms with his clothes on.

Unusual Artifacts We found throughout, and at the airport, there were great photos. DOWNEY BALL

WASHED UP ON BEACH

WAR MACHINE:

Picks after we bombed these guys from the boats

The two days before D-day, ships of the naval task forces and aircraft of the Fast Carrier Force in support of the Fourth Division, systematically began to bomb and shell every square yard of Roi-Namur. The three battleships, The Tennessee, Maryland and Colorado--5 cruisers, and 19 destroyers combined in a non-stop barrage which laid 2,655 tons of steel on the islands.

Gun crews did their utmost to make sure that every Japanese soldier on the islands got at least one shell with his name on it, and took place on January 31, 1944. Dam, we are good at evening up the fight.

Graveyard

This is where the house I stood in front of the war. They must have moved to a wrecked plane.

Downey thinks this is a Riccadonna.

Bob Hope

Operation maps showed numerous installations - - coast defense guns, heavy and medium antiaircraft guns, machine gains, blockhouses, a total of 52 pillboxes, multiple antitank trenches, and barbed wire. Added to this, the two islands of Roi-Namur were hardly more than overgrown sand spits. An estimated 3,000 enemy troops were there to defend them. It was not a pleasant prospect! Click below to see how much artillery was here!

GOODNIGHT ROI!!!

Stone Fish found in 1966. Deadly fish!